Another vendor fair in the books and it was a wonderful day! Gorgeous weather, live music, tons of delicious food and so many fun artistic vendors in one place.

This was the first year that this festival included craft vendors, so nobody was really sure what to expect for attendance. It's always hard to gauge just what you think will sell and what would be the hot item.

Today's hot items were, of course, the stuffed owls and the pointillism dot floral paintings. It was fun to see the happy customers choose what they wanted and then walk away with a prized piece of Glimmerbug in their possession. I love seeing smiling faces enjoying my art!

But the best thing of all about today was this:

My 6 year old daughter decided to forego a fun day with dad and the siblings to sit with me at this fair and keep me company. How lucky am I that she's just as perfectly sweet as she can be. Not one complaint. Not one, "When can we go home?". Not a bored thing to say. She was simply wonderful and I'm thrilled that I got to spend so much "mama and me" time with her.

Everything is all packed up and now unloaded from the car. Next is to start preparing for the November event at Groton Community School. Check out my Event Diary to get more information about this fun and FREE craft fair!

Such a gorgeous morning here in New England and a perfect day for a walk. Lots of colors and trees changing their leaves that burst in reds, oranges, yellows and maroons.

In years past it seems like the colors of the trees have changed much earlier and peak season here in Massachusetts for leaf peeping is typically in early October. But I think with the summer drought that we experienced these last few months have caused the trees to hold off on their color changes until now.

It was beautiful to walk and see the beginning of the leaf changes. Year to year I tend to forget just how gorgeous it actually is where I live until this time of year when I'm reminded of all the beauty.

Towards the middle of our walk (today I took one of my little pugs with me), I came across some really gorgeously huge mushrooms. They were GIGANTIC! Check them out:

Such a beautiful mushroom, with bright color and a lot of texture. Never saw one like this around here before!

This one was a bit smaller but practically a proper toad stool! I can't wait to show my kids after school!

The underneath of the huge mushroom was really interesting too. Like a perfect little umbrella for a bunny or chipmunk!

I love seeing all the different things I can find on my neighborhood walks. It changes daily too, so that keeps it interesting! And whatever dog I have with me always seems to find some interesting things to sniff out while we are on our adventures.

One of my favorite past times is swapping art with a great group of friends from the online Facebook group "Just Add Art." We have a great time creating based on a theme and then sending little art treasures to each other. In the past we've done round robin art journals, altered playing cards, file folder art journals and more.

This past swap was something I've never done before: create a shrine based on Dia De Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. I'll admit, at first, I was a nervous because it was something out of my comfort zone. But I decided to challenge myself and participate anyway to see what came out of it! After all, these sugar skulls that are a major part of Day of the Dead are really gorgeous, colorful and full of personality. Usually I'm not a skull kind of girl, but sugar skulls are so eye catching and I've got a few decorative pieces around my house for the season so I was game in seeing if I could make something as pretty as what I've seen around my area.

Lo and behold, I had a ball creating such a fun little piece. 3D art isn't my typical forté and this ended up being such a great time, that I definitely want to make more of these! Check out my Dia De Los Muertos shrine:

Participating in online art swaps is a fun past time of mine when time allows. I love making something for someone based on a theme or idea and then swapping within the group. It's inspiring to see what other people dream up!

This past week, I joined a challenge to create an art journal out of an ordinary manilla folder. Challenge accepted! Never done something like this before so I figured I'd give it a try and see what happened.

Turns out, I totally loved doing it. So much so, that I found a huge box of plain manilla folders in my supply cabinet that I will absolutely be turning into more of these little treasures! A future video is what I'm thinking so you can see how I create it! Yes, let's add that to my list of things I need to do!

So here's what I came up with for my challenge. Not bad for a first try and I even filled the little pockets with small pieces of artwork that I hope the recipient likes and can use!

I just saw this incredibly simple project from Mark Montano that I am just dying to try out (if only I had the taffeta on hand!) These look so easy and are so pretty and colorful that I would love to add them to my daughter's bedroom! Or even my own! Definitely a fun little project that could add vibrancy to pretty much any room!